Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain. –Proverbs 30:7-9

The American financial situation has been looking rather catastrophic lately. People are wondering if we’re heading for another depression. There’s worry over retirement investments, real estate values, inflation, tax increases. In short, we’re worried about our riches. The truth is, we may be headed for tough times.

But would that really be so bad? And what do we mean by “tough?” Most of the world for most of history has lived far, far, far, ridiculously, almost unimaginably far below our current standard of living. We’re talking one room huts, one change of clothes, and if it’s food, you eat it, and you don’t complain that you don’t like squash because there’s no cold pizza in the fridge to snack on later (there’s no fridge, in fact). What makes us think we deserve to be different, or even that it’s preferable to be different?

On a global scale, we are a nation of the richest of the rich. Even our slums are full of satellite dishes and big screen TVs. We’re the only nation in the world, perhaps of all time, in which vast numbers of our “poor” can afford to be obese. We are rolling, glutted in wealth, drowning in it, until all we can see is our comfortable prosperity. Few of us have ever had to wonder where the next meal would come from, or had the experience of having to actually trust God because there really is nothing left, no food stamps, no welfare, no WIC, nothing.

And you know what? Just like Proverbs 30 warns, we’ve denied the Lord. We are a nation completely given over to sensuality, exporting our pornographic filth, polluting the whole world. We have murdered 49,131,136 of our children since we made abortion legal in 1973 (Click the number to see how it’s grown since I posted this.). We have attempted to wipe out every reference to God and His law in all our public buildings and to erase Him from our history books. We have enshrined evolution and humanism in our schools, museums, and media. We have mainstreamed homosexuality to the point of validating it through civil unions and even marriage in some states.

One of our children had a bad attitude and wasn’t sharing well or considering others in the enjoyment of a new birthday toy. My husband took the toy away until the attitude improved. Maybe we’re experiencing a little of the same kind of judgment. Could it be that God is taking our prosperity away until our attitude improves? That wouldn’t be so bad, and if it draws people back from denying the Lord, then it would be a really good thing.

And what if we do have to live through “tough times?” We may have to take aging family members into our homes because their retirement savings have evaporated. We may have to quit hopping on airplanes or driving the family van hundreds of miles for vacations. Our children may have to learn a little of the spirit of the children in Little House in the Big Woods, who were awestruck with joy at receiving a pair of mittens and a stick of candy at Christmas. We may have to get serious about gardening, eating local, and creativity with beans (even squash!). We may have to learn to be like the newlywed Brother Andrew in God’s Smuggler, who was thankful that he and his wife had their own room, not their own house or their own apartment, their own room. We may have to wear the same clothes several days in a row. We may be brought face to face with real needs in our own neighborhoods and chances to give sacrificially.

Of course, I have no idea what it would be like to live like this, but I know that untold thousands of people before me have done all this and more and been happy in the process. And, yes, many untold thousands have also been extremely unhappy. This world has known great and terrible suffering of kinds that few of us can even contemplate. But if suffering brings us to the Lord, then isn’t it better to suffer on this earth and spend eternity with Him than to live comfortably here, and spend eternity without Him? Many of us have been praying for years for God to turn our nation to righteousness. Are we willing to endure the hardship it might take to wake people up to their need?

It certainly won’t be as easy as living in a world where everyone has a 3000 square foot house, two cars in the garage, and several Coach bags in the closet, but in the vast eternal scheme of things, isn’t the joy of learning to truly depend on the Lord and seeing those around us come to Him of far greater value than ease? I’m not saying we should go looking to suffer, but if God asks it of us, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. –Timothy 6:6-10

Kim over at The Executive Housewife has written a lovely post on how she is encouraging young women in their relationships with their fathers. I think her excellent message applies equally well to any family relationship we might be struggling with. Check it out. You’ll be refreshed.

About a year ago, my son’s little world suddenly opened to intoxicating majesty. My husband’s company met an important milestone, and management rewarded everyone by paying for a trip for all the employees and their families to Cedar Point, a semi-local, giant amusement park, for hours and hours of family fun. And fun it was, so much so that my son became obsessed. Nearly every day for the following year he asked if we could go back. When we climbed into the van to go home from a rock climbing vacation, a little voice in the back called out, “I wanna go to Cedar Point!” Whenever I tried to convey some deep, spiritual truth, my son would listen intently, and then ask, “Can I go to Cedar Point?” It was clear that Cedar Point, in all its kiddie ride glory, had become an idol in his two-year-old heart.

A couple weeks ago, on our way home from a family reunion, we went back. It was a thrilling day: the “frog hopper” ride, bumper boats, cars, trucks, the “frog hopper” again, helicopters, an elephant ear, the “frog hopper” again, a guy in a Snoopy Suit, a mini roller coaster, a bouncy Snoopy, seventeen more rides on the “frog hopper.” My little guy missed his nap, walked several miles, grinned, and laughed, and wore himself out. And by the end, he was crying, “I want to go home! I want to go home!”

Surprise, surprise. His fountain of joy was just a broken cistern after all, and he had drunk it dry.

Jeremiah 12:11-13 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

This may seem like a harsh indictment of a two-year-old. After all, isn’t it normal to be really excited about an amusement park and equally normal to get worn out by the end of the day? Yup, it’s normal, so normal, in fact that it’s classically human. Don’t all of us have Cedar Points, places where we think life will be perfectly fulfilling? For some of us, our Cedar Point is marriage, for some it’s education, or a certain kind of job. My Cedar Point is on the corner of Duggar Avenue and Waller Way, in the heart of Amish country. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It has all the hottest rides for the feminine fundamentalist. There’s the “Run Your Own Small Farm” roller coaster, the “Make Your Own Nearly Everything” carousel, and the “Husband Works from Home” locomotive, which pulls the “Family Train” around the park. Every day is “Homeschool Day,” and let’s not forget that if you buy a family pass, you’ll receive a new baby every eighteen months. Glorious! A fountain of joy.

Or maybe another broken cistern?

There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, just like there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a family trip somewhere fun. The problem comes when we get obsessed, when we think that if our lives were just this certain way, then we would be happy, when in fact we have “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” right now (1Peter 1:3). It would be great to live on a small farm, but if I fail to “rejoice evermore” (1 Thessalonians 5:16) in town, chances are I’d still be unjoyful, even in the heart of Amish country, because I already have the One Thing, the Only Thing that will ever truly satisfy. And if I forsake Him to drink from any other source, in the end, I’ll still be thirsty. I’ll still get tired of life. I’ll still cry that I want to go home.

Seeking a lifestyle that will help us better serve the Lord is good, but we can’t do it because we think it’s going to make us happy. We have to do it because we are first of all seeking HIM. Only He can make us happy. Only He can make us fulfilled. Only He can quench our thirst. And only He can never be drunk dry. Like Jesus told the woman at the well:

John 4:13-14 Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Everything else is a broken cistern. We can drink it dry, or we can watch the tepid water slowly leak out until our cistern’s dry, but either way it’s going to wind up dry. And we’ll still be thirsty.

That day at Cedar Point, I stood my son on a bench, and tried to explain this to him. I told him how at home he always wanted to go to Cedar Point, and now that he was here, he was tired. I told him how everything eventually stops being so interesting and gets boring in the end, everything but God. I told him that God was the Only One who would ever satisfy him. He listened. I’m sure it will be years before he truly understands, but at least he heard about the water at a time when he was thirsty. And maybe someday he’ll realize that most of all, he wants to go to God and not just Cedar Point.

Have y’all seen this one? It’s great.

(I tried putting the movie on my site, but it destroyed my formatting, so now I’m just doing a link. If any of you have any tips for me about posting videos, I’d love to hear them!)

Do you want to know the ugly, brutal truth? I love it when people are impressed by me.

When my children behave well in public, I glow, because now everyone can see “what a good mother I am.” When one of my blog posts makes it on to Ladies Against Feminism, I thrill at the public “acclaim.” When I serve delicious treats at prayer meeting, or sew nice clothes for my family, or do pretty near anything that people pat me on the back for, I’m delighted because I’m “so successful,” and now everyone knows it!

Ahem. Then there are the times I fall on my face, the times when not only is my baby screaming on the airplane, but I’m visibly flustered by it (blush); the times I write, and write, and write, but wonder if anyone’s reading; the times I forget to grease the pan and my “delicious treat” sticks like it was baked with cement; and let’s not forget all the fabulous new clothes that turned out not to fit quite right.

Recently, I had one of “those” days, the humbling kind, when, shall we say, the accolades were not exactly rolling in. The next morning I was still down a few pegs, trying to tell myself that it was really all OK, when my baby woke up. She hadn’t opened her eyes yet, but she was stirring and fussing, so I laid my head down next to hers and started singing a silly song with variations on her name, and she smiled, eyes still closed. I picked her up. She put both little arms around my neck and hugged me tight.

Now this is the part where I tell you that suddenly my disappointments didn’t matter anymore. But alas, I haven’t reached that height of sanctification. I was still being stupid, but at least I realized that I was being stupid.

Why do I care so much what other people think of me when my family is right here loving me? Why do I waste emotional energy worrying about being impressive when God has already provided me with all the warmth, and acceptance, and blessing I could ever need? Why? Because I’m my own idol, and my flesh wants everyone to worship me. Yuck.

It’s disgusting when I say it like that, so barren, and selfish, and evil, and yet, isn’t that really what I’m doing by seeking to be impressive? At it’s core, that’s what worship is, being impressed by something. But like Jesus told Satan in Luke 4:8, “it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. ”

When we’re hoping people will be impressed with us, aren’t we serving ourselves and usurping, even just in our own hearts, a little bit of the honor that should belong to God alone? And when we do that, we’re not just robbing the Lord, we’re shortchanging ourselves by denying ourselves the joy of doing what we were created to do. We weren’t created for our own glory. We were created for God’s glory.

Isaiah 43:7 Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

And it’s up to God how he glorifies Himself. I might want to impress people with my great cooking. God might want to glorify Himself by showing people how His children can be joyful even in the face of failure. I might want to impress people with my children’s flawless and “unchildish” behavior. God might want to glorify Himself by showing the world a sweet (and swift!) response to the beginnings of a temper tantrum. I might want to impress others by my radiant health and vibrant beauty. God might want to glorify Himself by giving me the strength to die gracefully of cancer. (And, wow, if you want to see a couple beautiful examples of this, look here and here.) I might want to impress people by having more children than Michelle Duggar. God might want to glorify Himself by making me an example of patience and faith in the face of miscarriage or trouble conceiving. I could go on and on.

The point is, I don’t get to expect to look good to everyone all the time. I don’t get to be impressive. I get to help show the world that God is impressive.

Psalm 34:3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.

Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth.

Rom 14:4

Christians are a judgmental lot. It probably springs from the fact that the Lord is so important to us. We want desperately to please and honor Him, and we’re all doing our very best. Trouble is, Jane Christian’s best may not look like Nancy Christian’s best, and then what? Well, sometimes there can be very cordial, loving interactions between people as they seek to understand each other, and maybe one or both will even end up changing somehow. But more likely Jane and Nancy are both quite firm in their convictions (thank you very much!) They’re doing things differently, and they’re going to keep doing things differently. And that’s when the trouble can start.

I cover my head in real life so let’s use that for our Jane and Nancy story, too. Let’s say Jane doesn’t cover her head. She has no conviction whatsoever about that. And let’s say Nancy has a very strong conviction that she just cannot get away from that she should cover her head. OK, here’s the question: Who is going to be judgmental?

I think that most people would off the cuff say, “Nancy,” because we have this idea that people who have convictions that we don’t have must necessarily be legalistic and are therefore judgmental Pharisees who think we’re going to Hell…or something like that. But do you notice how judgmental that sounds?

I’ve been a Christian since I was four and a half years old, and while I am still quite young, I have had a bit of a journey already as I’ve gone from my childhood days in a large, less conservative evangelical church (read: women with pants and short hair giving missions reports before the drummer gets going again on the next worship set) to my early adulthood in a small, extremely conservative home church (read: women with modest dresses and long hair under head coverings sitting quietly while one of the men calls out the next hymn). So I’ve gotten to experience judgment from both sides. And you know what? It’s systemic. Jane is just as likely to be judging Nancy as Nancy is to be judging Jane.

We all have what I like to call a “subset of convictions.” This is the list of things that we feel the Lord truly wants us to do or not do to be pleasing to Him. For example, most of us probably believe that Christians shouldn’t kill people for their athletic shoes. Some of you might have the rule that Christians shouldn’t have rules, and that anyone who does have rules doesn’t understand grace, and is therefore not as good of a Christian as you, but I’m willing to bet that you still have the “No killing people for their shoes” rule. Other people have convictions about not lying, dressing modestly, letting God size their families, wearing headcoverings, going to church every time the doors are open, not drinking alcohol, etc. We’re all pretty familiar with this. (And please note that I’m not saying that it’s abstaining from killing people for their shoes that saves us! We are saved ONLY by the Lord Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on our behalf. But the Bible does say that we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). And I’m pretty sure that most Christians would agree that allowing someone to live, even if we do like his shoes, is a good work that God wants us to walk in.)

Now, the judgmentalism falls into two categories. Either the person we are encountering has fewer things in his subset of convictions than we do or more things, and based on that, we tend to think either:

1. “This person cannot possibly be sold out for Christ and have a vibrant, thriving relationship with Him because he is so disobedient.” OR

2. “This person cannot possibly be sold out for Christ and have a vibrant, thriving relationship with Him because he is so legalistic.”

Hmm. They sound so similar side by side, don’t they?

Not only this, but most of us also have chips on our shoulders and tend to judge each other for the judgment that we assume is being passed. “Hey, there’s Nancy Christian over there with her head covered. I bet she’s thinking I’m not really honoring the Lord because I’m not wearing a headcovering.” OR “Hey, there’s Jane Christian over there with her head uncovered. I bet she’s thinking I don’t have anything deep and meaningful to say about the Christian walk because I am so ‘legalistically’ wearing a headcovering.” Are you guilty? I am.

The somewhat obvious, easier said than done answer is for us all to just quit it, to stop being so mean to each other, stop feeling insecure about how other people view us and our convictions. It’s hard, though, because we all actually believe the things we believe. And for most of us, it’s not just an “I’m OK, you’re OK” sort of belief. Even if we have a good dose of humility and acknowledge that we could be wrong about a few things, the fact is, we don’t really think we are wrong because if we thought we were wrong on something, it wouldn’t be a conviction anymore. And if, for the sake of argument, there were a person who was convicted about exactly the right subset of convictions, then it would actually be true that those who were convicted about fewer were disobedient, and those who were convicted about more were adding to what the Lord wants us to do. We can’t stop feeling convicted about our convictions, but maybe we should stop judging other people’s motives. As Roman’s 14 points out, it is possible to do opposite things for the same reason.

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks (Romans 14:5-6).

It’s hard to be different. It feels safe, and cozy, and affirming when everyone around us is exactly like us. We all want to please the Lord, and it’s so easy to think we’re doing a good job when other people believe the same things we do. But for some reason, God didn’t work things out that way. Aside from not killing each other for our shoes, as perplexing as it is, we don’t all have the same set of convictions. We don’t get to be each other’s standard. You are not OK if Nancy approves of you, or Jane, or John, or Bob, or anyone else. To your own master you stand or fall. And so does everyone else. Maybe this is God’s way of helping us learn to stop being so self-focused and concerned with how we’re doing relative to the people around us and start really loving them even if they seem not to be able to read, er, I mean, have a different interpretation of Scripture than we do. Somehow, we have to quit judging each other. I think the real answer is to focus on the Lord and how we can serve Him, never mind the people around us. I’m praying about this one in my life. And when I get a little discouraged about it, I’m reminding myself that at least I’m starting to become aware of my sin, and like they used to say on the old G.I. Joe cartoon, “Knowing is half the battle!”

…I hope no one’s judging me for watching T.V. as a child…